Breakaway Books

Authored by Kristina McMorris; Published May 2025; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

The Girls of Good Fortune may be billed as a historical fiction novel, but it bears a certain resemblance to a fairy tale. While it had a fascinating setting to draw in the reader, it’s offset by a whole lot of overused tropes in this gold rush-era novel.

In The Girls of Good Fortune, Celia is working as a maid for a wealthy family in nineteenth century Oregon, and she is on thin ice after the family discovers her half-Chinese heritage. After the dual blows of her father’s death and an unexpected pregnancy from the family’s leading scion, she finds herself exiled to a brothel to work as a maid. Celia is desperate to contact the father of her child but instead begins to devote her efforts to the pursuit of justice for the many people of Chinese descent who suffer at the hands of prejudiced settlers. Tricked into leaving her daughter in someone else’s care and impressed into labor on a ship heading down the coast, Celia must find her way home before she loses her daughter for good.

The history of the American west is filled with the mistreatment of Chinese migrants, but I would be lying if I said I was familiar with the types of events depicted in this story. Brutal massacres, prejudiced lawmakers, unwelcome shopkeepers—all of these factors make Celia hide her heritage, both for herself and for her daughter. This poor treatment is far and away the most realistic part of the narrative, along with the portrayal of the rough and tumble lifestyle of the pioneers, engaging in illegal train hopping and being pressed into service on commercial ships. The most connected I felt to Celia, and possibly the emotional high point of the whole novel, is the moment she decided that she can no longer hide her ethnicity, regardless of how difficult it makes her life. She is determined to remain proud of her heritage and her family, difficult though that may make her everyday life, and I felt the beauty of that pride. Apart from this point of connection, Celia’s feels like a black box, her emotions difficult to discern.

But for all the gritty realism tucked into the background of the book, the main narrative feels much like a fairy tale. The father of Celia’s child, Stephen, appears as a savior in just the right moment, having been tricked into abandoning his true love Celia by the wicked mother-in-law. It was truly difficult to imagine how the eldest son of a politician of the era could be so open-minded as to marry the family’s maid, especially when faced with said family’s disapproval, but perhaps I am needlessly cynical. Regardless, his decision is barely remarked upon, and he is cast as a Prince Charming whose heroism is taken very nearly for granted. Celia’s friend Lettie is a sex worker with a heart of gold, as is the madam of the brothel, who goes out of her way to care for Celia’s daughter. Again, I can’t help but cynically assume that a brothel owner wouldn’t be quite so altruistic. Even the brothel itself is depicted as a much nicer working environment than I imagine they actually were in the late nineteenth century.

If you want to be assured of a happy ending and learn something of the condition of Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth century west, The Girls of Good Fortune is a good choice, unrealistic narrative devices notwithstanding.